Fantastic module. Fun to play and run. Wonderful puzzles and an excellent example of an elemental plane done right.

This module also has one of the best trinkets I have ever seen.

Without spoiling anything, and accounting for the higher price of the module - In many ways this adventure is a tease, always promising but rarely delivering.

Lore:

• There is a lot of good lore in this module, but a lot was also witheld and instead left for the dm to figure out or make up.
• A lot of information regarding certain NPCS was also explicitly left ambiguous.

Fun to run as a DM:

• There was a lot of handholding the module that didn't seem to matter. The DM is asked to make notes of incidents that have no matter in the story (maybe to make the DM look ominous?). -The author seems to assume the players will recognize a lot of things rather than telling which information the DM should impart.
• It is not clear when players should ignore warnings or why. There are a lot of warnings that the DM is to give the players. Some are very obvious and have no effect, some result in instant player death, and some are given with the expectation they will be ignored in order to continue the plot and story.

Player angency and chances for the players to shine:

• Many decisions are railroaded, which isn't bad except there is the illusion that the players have a choice on things they don't.
• Phrases like "Actual score is irrelevant", "(if the characters go off book) they are guaranteed to be swarmed and killed" are used.
• There are environmentals and effects that explicitly nerf player capabilities.
• This is a module that the best decision is to run away.

How well it ties in to past modules:

• Lore introduced in the previous module take a back seat to other aspects of lore.
• The people in Candlekeep actually aren't interested in the books from the first module that are listed as of interest to the people of Candlekeep.
• Overall this felt like a side story rather than a tie in to a three part arc.

Quality of Writing and communication:

• There was a lot that was just left open to the DM without suggestions which felt lazy
• Some things are left in the module via copy pasta from a previous adventure. Like a certain thanks for a certain sentient sword.
• There were a lot of dangling plot elements and hooks introduced in the introduction at Candlekeep that actually don't seem to matter or have any impact later in the book. Threats are not delivered if players fail to ignore warnings here. The adventurers could have just received an invitation to the dungeon by their factions and nothing would have been lost.
• I am most likely missing something, but reading this module it wasn't clear if the big bad in the previous module was subordinate or controlling the big bad in this module, nor what either of their plans were, or really other than they were somehow using and being used by each other until the adventureres show up. It felt messy and confusing to read.

Advertised, this adventure is for skilled exploreres. The characters are then led to a sabotage mission. In the final encounter neither of these matter and it's simply a matter of murder hobo.

It felt like this module really doesn't know what it wants to be and can't present a clear image. I think it would have been better off as a low tier module or a Call of Cthulu game. That way the threats could have been more visceral without the illusion of players actually being able to make a difference in the outcome of the story.

This adventure is like Ravenloft Clue. I really enjoyed it, but maybe I missed something, it wasn't clear how to get the adventurers to get interested in the murder, or why they should care to figure it out. They can just sort of stumble thru it.

I feel as if this adventure would have been better done elsewhere in Barovia, with the same dramatis personae!, by having less conflict with the player's interest in exploring the Amber Temple.

This is a fun adventure. Get creeped out by weird visions, attack a hedge maze, what's not too like?

This was a very solid adventure. Luca made for a very memorable NPC that the players were very interested in helping out. The main problem I had with this module is there are several new NPCs that are regulars in Barovia that are introduced just now in this adventure. How have the PCs not met these people? I don't know, but the other NPCs were confusing. The boss fight was a very fun battle.

I am not sure how I feel about this one, there are Yuan-ti here, the ghost of a troll from Season 1, a powerful NPC that is given little to no introduction other than the title "Visitor". I honestly got lost here. There were too many random parts stitched together, and the confusing typos from the earlier versions of this pdf did not help anything.

Overall this could be an interesting adventure, but you would need to put a bit of time and foreshadowing from other adventures ahead of time!

I am any use of fey creatures in stories, but the use of Jeny Greenteeth is very well done. I liked the use of rhymes in the story and games that these creatures play. Overall a nice capstone to the tier 1 portion of the season.

This was a fun adventure where the players have a chance to interact with and learn more about the Vistiani.

Overall, I felt there could have been a little bit more explanation about how these Vistiani fit in the storyline a bit more. Regarding the metaplot, if Esmae had appeared here, or some of the Vistiani here had a more memorable role later, that would have made this story stand out more.

I loved this adventure.

There are lots of little details here, from the gothic setting to the creepy toy soldiers. This is a fantastic adventure to both play in and run as a DM. I do believe this adventure is AL's answer to Death House. It was thoroughly enjoyable!

On its own, the module is only O.K. As a companion / followup to 4-02, it just simply fell flat. It looks like the story was written out of sync with 4-02 and as such there is no guidance about how to deal with Laszlo's interactions with regards to the fate of Aliana from the previous module. I felt Laszlo as written here fell flat. The story needs to have something to make it more fun and memorable. Honestly the most memorable thing about this adventure is the magic item that the players made fun of.

I thoroughly enjoyed this module, it left a lot open for the dm and the mystery about Laszlo and Alina was very intense for the group of people I played with. My only problem with the module is it felt railroady in the fate of Alina and the werewolf pup. As written, no matter what the players do or try to do, the story steers itself away from these NPCs making the PCs feel more than a little helpless.

This was a quirky series of 5 adventures. I enjoyed them at the time of purchase because they introduced the setting and theme, but looking back they were overall fairly forgettable. I suppose if you are going to run the DDAL adventure series this is a decent into, but compared to the very memorable Death House, it fell flat.